Northern NY cheddar third at Cheese Super Bowl

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- A medium cheddar made by Pat Whalen at McCadam Cheese in northern New York won third place in the 2009 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest in Green Bay.

Second place went to "Classico," a hard goat's milk cheese made by Team TFI One, a group of workers from Tumalo Farms in Bend, Ore. The winning cheese was a parmesan made in Wisconsin.

Dubbed the Cheese Super Bowl, the contest at legendary Lambeau Field brought 1,360 chesses to town to vie for top honors.

McCadam cheese maker Ken Root took the top honor in 2007.

That win helped boost McCadam's sales, although how much is tough to say because the cheese won awards in other contests, too, said Doug DiMento, spokesman for Agri-Mark, the farmer cooperative that owns the McCadam brand.

"We're real excited to win a national competition like that," DiMento said, adding that it boosts morale among farmers and salespeople as well as cheesemakers. "It makes a tangible difference in our marketing, which helps our sales."

Twenty-four judges chose SarVecchio parmesan made by John Griffiths of Sartori Food Corp. as the top cheese among 1,360 entries. Griffiths was not at the contest, and Patrick Mugan, vice president of product innovation, didn't have time to call him before he was mobbed by reporters hungry for comment.

"It's a really great honor," Mugan said.

It also could help business.

"People see the awards, and they will actually put (the cheese) in their mouth and taste the wonderful flavors," Mugan said.

The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association hosts the national and world competitions in alternate years. Cheese makers generally do not attend. This year's winners will receive their awards April 23 at the Wisconsin Cheese Industry Conference in La Crosse, Wis.

Thursday, judges in white coats and hats rotated among half a dozen tables, evaluating 60 cheeses that had already been named the best in their categories. Judges pull a plug from each cheese, smell it and roll it in their fingers to test its texture before tasting it. But there's no eating -- judges spit out the samples when done.

The three-day competition included 60 categories of cheese, two categories of butter -- salted and unsalted -- and two presentation categories. Entries ranged from 2 ounces of soft-ripened cheese to 200-pound blocks of Swiss.

The 60 cheese finalists will be auctioned at the cheese industry conference in April. About six years ago, someone paid $20,000 for a 40-pound block of cheddar, WCMA executive director John Umhoefer said. But the auction usually brings in about $60,000 to pay for the contest and continuing education for cheese makers.